When E-Mail was invented in the late 80’s of the last century (sic!) most people announced the end of the written letter within the next five years. Today (25 years later) we have to look back on several large projects that have failed in their endeavors to replace paper letters by E-Mail.

The reason why those transformation projects failed is quite simple: While business and public administration have embraced and implemented IT very quickly and thoroughly, the digitization of the society takes a lot longer. In Germany for instance the society is divided into three groups: Digital Outsiders (40%), Digital Immigrants (20%) and Digital Natives (40%)(1). The Internet economy may focus its business onto the Digital Natives, but banks, insurance companies and public administration have to serve the whole society, which consists of “onliners” and “offliners”. So in the crucial B2C communication we are dealing with a serious hen-egg-problem:

Companies and public administration would like to digitize their letter output very quickly if all of their customers and citizens could receive qualified electronic letters. A qualified electronic letter means that it is not only safe and verifiable but also has identified senders and receivers. On the other side there is no reason for a citizen to register for a qualified mail account as long as no company and no administration are using that electronic channel by default. So both sides are waiting for the transformation of the other side.

Hybrid mail could overcome that barrier: A hybrid mail operator is offering a smart digital letter channel which splits the output in two directions: If the receiver has a qualified mail account then he will get the letter digitally. Otherwise the hybrid mail operator prints the letter and delivers it physically.

The advantage of that hybrid strategy is obvious: It is decoupling the speed of digitization of business, administration and society. Large volumes senders can digitize their output at once in one step regardless if the receivers are online or not. Receivers who are registering to a qualified mail account will receive more and more letters digitally.

Needless to say that most of Europe’s postal operators are already offering or implementing hybrid mail services. Now they consider a next step to connect those services to a common cross-border-network, which expands the usability of domestic hybrid mail by enabling international communication. Despite the fact, that there is already a valid standard(2) in place, which assures interoperability between hybrid mail providers, the eIDAS regulation could play a crucial role in this process. eIDAS could set the badly needed common requirements for security and identity levels and eventually defines European standards for electronic signatures, timestamps and seals, which are necessary to build a cross-border-network of multiple providers. More than that, the eIDAS regulation comes with a suitable process for qualification and offers an appealing feature for qualified electronic registered delivery services: clearly defined legal effects, which makes those services more valuable.

Provided that the eIDAS implementing acts don’t inhibit hybrid mail services and its business models I am quite confident that hybrid mail not only could evolve to one of the most successful eIDAS services but also transform the postal sector at all.

(1) https://www.divsi.de/publikationen/studien/divsi-milieu-study-on-trust-a...

(2) CEN/TS 14014:2006 (CEN/TS 14014:2015-8)